Today the pink race will arrive in Fossano starting from Novara, where Gaspare Campari invented bitter, an essential and luxury gregarious alcoholic drink that often makes the combination or mix with other components successful
Let’s start again where we left off, that is, with the stamps. Gianni Rodari hoped that sooner or later someone would think of flavoring the “wettable” side of the stamps with the flavor of ratafià. But maybe not everyone knows that on the stamps of the Italian Post Office, those of 15 cents of lire from one hundred years ago, in the two-year period 1924-25, under the profile of King Vittorio Emanuele III – perhaps the only sovereign in universal history who, on a stamp, would also have had a full figure in 1:1 scale – another sticker was printed: the one from the Campari advertisement, in two variants. In some, that of the Bitter, with a sort of little spirit holding a bottle in his hand and surrounded by a spiral orange peel; and that of the Cordial, with the Saint Bernard dog, both designed by the famous advertising painter Leonetto Cappiello.
Because one says Campari and immediately thinks of Milan. But its history, before arriving in the “city to drink” par excellence – even if it is an antonomasia invented one hundred years after the birth of Campari and, moreover, borrowed from another famous alcoholic brand – has Piedmontese origins. But let’s go in order.
Gaspare Campari he was born in 1828 in Cassolnovo, which at the time was, west of the Ticino, in the territory of the Kingdom of Sardinia – again: it was Savoyard Piedmont but due to the bizarre risk following the War of the Spanish Succession around 1720 he was called that. Son of farmers, probably, given the area, rice farmers, Gaspare, however, had a passion for herbs and spirits and was sent as a boy to learn the trade in Turin, in Giacomo Bass’s liquor and confectionery shop, in Piazza Castello in Turin. After a long and busy apprenticeship, Campari decided to start his own business and, some say in 1856, some in 1860, he rented the Caffè dell’Amicizia, in Novara, in what at the time was called the Angolo delle Hours, between the current Corso Cavour and Corso Italia. And there, he finally begins to experiment on his own. He invents liqueurs and aperitifs with exotic names: the Elixir of Long Life, Rum Oil, Pink Liqueur… and this could be enough to already take us into the Giro d’Italia.
But the real success is the drink which initially took the name of “Bitter all’uso d’Hollanda” but which, given how good it was, soon became so popular that it was more aptly called Bitter Campari. From there began the fortunes of Mr. Gaspare who only two years later, in 1862, moved to Milan, where he started his very successful business which, after more than half a century, has made Campari one of the most iconic brands in the world. From the first bar, opened under the Coperto dei Figini, the portico that diagonally occupied the southern part of Piazza del Duomo, and then, once the square was redesigned at the end of the nineteenth century, in the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele, the Caffè Campari and the Camparino; from the distilleries in via Corsico to the actual factory in Sesto San Giovanni; from the advertising entrusted to the most famous painters and illustrators of the time, from Cappiello to Fortunato Depero – who probably designed the shape of the Campari Soda bottle -, from Fisanotti, to Nanni, to Marangolo, up to the commercials shot by Federico Fellini to the calendars with the greatest photographers and models and the most iconic actors and actresses.
In short, the hydroalcoholic solution flavored with herbal, plant and fruit extracts, with a content of 25°, has become a real Red Passion in over 160 years of life: because unmistakable, beyond the aroma of the bitter-sweet aperitif, it is the color of Bitter, so much so that it was coded in a particular shade of red, first RAL 3020, carmine red, and then to the current RAL 3002, obtained from the combination of the artificial red dyes E122, E102 and E103. An eminently Milanese history, that of Campari, however, originates in Novara, where the third stage of the Giro d’Italia begins tomorrow.
And, coincidentally, Novara is practically halfway between Milan and Turin which, together, give life to the name of a famous cocktail which combines, in fact, the two aperitifs par excellence of the two cities, Campari and Vermouth, with a splash of seltzer. Here we find out that the nature of Campari has characteristics that assimilate it to one of the winning qualities of cycling: that of knowing how to give the best of oneself in teamwork. In short, it can be said that in cocktails Campari is an essential and luxurious companion that often makes the combination or mix with other components successful.. In fact, in addition to the Milan-Turin, now known more as Americano, Campari successfully enters the compositions of the Negroni – with gin and vermouth, or in the “wrong” variant with sparkling wine instead of gin. Or again in the Campari Orange – one part Campari and four parts orange juice – which is also known as Garibaldi, for the union of the “Garibaldino” red with Sicilian oranges in memory of the landing of the Thousand. And here we return to the Giro again, since Garibaldi has almost always been called the handbook par excellence of the Corsa Rosa: that manual of ready technical information which is distributed at each edition by the organizers to all the race leaders.
Today from Novara we arrive in Fossano, province of Cuneo, probably the first stop for sprinters. And we, intoxicated by so much Red Passion, venture a prediction finding inspiration from the original name of Campari: Bitter all’uso d’Hollandia. And let’s say that at the finish line of the third stage in the Province of Granda, Fabio Jacobsen will arrive first, “in the style of Hollandia”.
